Where the Typewriter Lives On

By Nick Clayton

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

The typewriter has fallen from use where once it was ubiquitous

Brother has announced it has stopped manufacturing typewriters in the U.K. The biggest surprise is probably not that production has ceased, but that it has carried on so far into the 21st century. In the digital age, who on earth still buys typewriters?

Between April 2009 and March 2010, Jones says Brother shipped 5,800 typewriters in the UK, a figure which dropped to 4,600 the following tax year and then 3,600 in the twelve months leading to March this year. In the six months up to this week, Brother shifted 2,000 typewriters.

In terms of the broader market, Jones says that Brother sold 30,000 typewriters in the past year to EU businesses.

The article then goes on to look at who those typewriters were being bought by. It seems typewriters are approved devices for prisons in many countries. In the U.S. apparently they are also used by police for pre-formatted reports in Philadelphia, for instance, where systems have not been found to replace typing. There are also older people who have not moved on to computers.

This is definitely a niche market, but for a number of years Brother has been the only manufacturer in Europe. The Next Web asked Mr. Jones why the company had not carried on.

“The issue was the component parts availability,” says Jones. “The typewriter designs were also old and many of the electronic components had become discontinued by other manufacturers, so we had to make some last-time purchases a few years ago. We have basically exhausted this stock so cannot continue. Any redesign of the printed circuit boards would be more costly than the expected return on investment.”

There were about ten people still making typewriters at the company’s North Wales factory. They will be redeployed to the manufacturing and recycling of toner cartridges. For those who stick to their typewriters, Brother will continue to support spares for another seven years.

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